Photo Essays, Spot News and Stock Photography

Posts tagged ‘poverty’

The scenes of poverty presented here could have come from any number of cities in the United States. One might suspect Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Philadelphia or Los Angeles at first glance, but the locale for this essay was Norfolk, Virginia. It would be easy to say that the situation in the inner cities has improved, but the truth of the matter is that the conditions causing this poverty remain mostly unchanged throughout the decades before and after these images were taken. This “Inner City” essay is now included in our Americana collection.

Distended stomachs on children are a sure sign of malnutrition. Date is approximate; true date unknown.

Immigration reform? Let’s get serious. As long as conditions of poverty exist as illustrated in these photos taken in Honduras and Haiti c.1939 what would you do if you had to live under these conditions? The worldwide refugee problem is another issue involving civil wars and forcing people to flee by land and sea to safety.

A photograph needs to have something to say beyond the obvious in order to have some significance. It should almost border on the subliminal in that it communicates an unconscious social statement to some symbolic degree. Such images are difficult to find. I believe that “Hell’s Kitchen” is such an image.

“Migrant Mother” (1936) by Dorothea Lange is probably the most well recognized photo taken by the Farm Security Administration photographers that symbolizes the Great Depression. Several hundred thousand images both in black and white and in color were shot during this period.